A Boston Detective in a Welsh AlienDefense Agency
by smrt1
Summary: Crossing JordanTorchwood crossover. Matt Seely falls through a rip in spacetime and lands on Owen Harper's autopsy table. Slash! ABANDONED.
1. Prologue

**A Boston Detective in a Welsh Alien-Defense Agency  
** Prologue

* * *

Matt Seely liked to think he was prepared for anything. And hey, who didn't like to think that about themselves? No one wants to admit that, when faced with a brand new and slightly scary situation, they will freak out and shut down in an attempt to process it, because that's the normal human response. And another thing about being a normal human being was that every normal human wanted to extraordinary, better than the rest. 

He was sitting in the middle of court – he'd already testified, but he wanted to see the verdict get passed and this guy get put in jail (he considered it to be revenge for being stuck in the morgue elevator with a rotting shark corpse; it was, somewhat indirectly, this guy's fault). Matt was just sitting there, on that bench, not drawing any attention to himself at all (he knew a number of people would have been shocked by that, but he'd grown up under the edict of 'seen, but not heard' – he knew how to be quiet). And then, suddenly, he wasn't sitting there. Or standing there. Or there at all.

(There was no sound, or flash of light, and Matt didn't exactly have any plans for later, so Matt Seely's disappearance went unnoticed until the next day, when he failed to show for roll call. Many irate messages were left in his voicemail, but when there was no response twenty-four hours later, and he still hadn't been seen, the annoyance turned to panic and a number of detectives were sent to investigate. One of those detectives, Woody Hoyt, also later got reprimanded for punching one of the FBI agents assigned to the case after some evidence was uncovered that Seely might have been taken to a different state. But that isn't our story.)

Thankfully, the whatever-it-was happened in the middle of one of Matt's blinks, so he wasn't subjected to an instant visual change. Instead, there was a moment where he felt his mind go _BLIP_, and then he opened his eyes – and blinked a number of times in quick succession. "Uh." He'd gone from sitting in a dusty, creaky Boston courtroom, to sitting in a particularly odd looking morgue (he knew it was a morgue because he spent more time in morgues than was healthy for any person – any _living_ person, anyway; he wasn't as bad as Woody, yet, but he knew it was just a matter of time). And he went from sitting on a wooden bench to sitting on... an autopsy table. "I'm not dead!" Matt shouted, jumping up and pointing accusingly at the only other figure in the room. Said figure, in a white lab coat, jumped about a foot into the air and whirled around, mouth gaping open. "Also," Matt said, regaining some of his equilibrium, "You're gonna swallow flies if you keep that up."

The figure – well, guy, actually, probably in about his mid-twenties with spiky brown hair and a wide mouth – slammed his lips together quickly, and then smacked a button next to him. "Jack, we've got a little situation down here," he said, voice not nearly shaken enough for Matt's likes. After all, Matt figured, everybody else involved in this should be at i least /i as shaken up as he was. And also...

"Hey! I'm not little!" he snapped, ignoring the fact that he was, yes, actually pouting now. The lab coat man didn't get a chance to respond, though, as while he started to open his big mouth, there was a clatter from above (seriously, the slightly hysterical part of Matt's mind said, this was a completely bizarre morgue), and a broad figure (his mind, hysterical Matt said, needed to install a thesaurus so he could come up with a term other than 'figure') appeared in what seemed to be straight-from-the-Second-World-War clothing.

"Jack! This guy just appeared out of nowhere, _without_ setting off any of the Rift monitoring devices!" It was hard to tell if lab coat guy – and Matt could now see that the front of his lab coat was covered in various buttons, which amused the hysterical parts of himself – was freaked out, or just annoyed, but it sounded more like annoyed. Well, Matt thought, wasn't like _he_ wanted to be here either! He stuck his tongue out at what he was assuming was a doctor.

World War II reject frowned, and then addressed doctor lab coat. "That's... pretty much impossible. Who, and/or what, is he?"

Hysterical was taking over control of Matt. "Hey, I'm right here, Mr. World War Reject!" he snapped, waving his arm around. "You could ask _me_, you know!" He plastered a fake smile on his face and stuck out his hand. "Hi, I'm Detective Matt Seely, Boston PD, it's a pleasure to meet you." Again, he had been raised with manners. Just because he ignored them ninety-nine percent of the time didn't mean he had forgotten how to utilize them sarcastically.

Lab coat didn't even bother to hide his snickering, despite the half-frown, half-smirk, raised-eyebrow of the guy that, Matt was pretty sure, was his boss. He crossed over to where Matt was standing, still next to the autopsy table, and shook his hand. "Doctor Owen Harper, the pleasure's all yours." This was followed up by what Matt believed to be a leer. Boy, he hoped _he_ didn't look that stupid all the times he'd leered at people. "Welcome to Torchwood."


	2. Chapter 1

**A Boston Detective in a Welsh Alien-Defense Agency**  
Chapter 1

* * *

_"Welcome to Torchwood."_

There was a dramatic pause after that announcement, as both Dr. Harper and the Jack guy waited for him to react. They actually looked a little crestfallen when Matt stared at them and said, "And Torchwood _is_... what, exactly?"

"Well, he is American. I guess we can't expect Americans to have heard of us," Dr. Harper reasoned, somewhat reasonably. His tone was offset by the fact that he was pouting, though.

Wait. Ignore the pouting for a moment. "You mean, we're not _in_ America?"

Dr. Harper gave him a 'duh, idiot' look. "Do I sound American to you?"

"Well Nigel and Bug don't sound American either, but I never assumed the morgue was in England," Matt snapped, miffed at being called an idiot, even if it was only visually. Although, now that he thought about it, that would explain why all the morgies (and Woody, who might as well be a morgie for all the time he spent there) acted like they were from another planet. England, another planet, same thing.

Before he could get into a real bicker-match with the doctor (and he was way too young to be a doctor, unless he was Doogie Howser. Heh, Doogie Howser, Matt snickered to himself), the boss-man in World War II clothes interrupted them. "You're in Cardiff. Wales," he added after a pause.

Matt rolled his eyes. "I _know _where Cardiff is, thanks." Not that he could point to it, or Wales in general, on a map, but he _did_ know that Cardiff was _in_ Wales, which was a part of England or next to it or something. Hey, his last geography class had been over a decade ago! "So how'd I get from Massachusetts to the United Kingdom?" he asked after a moment.

"Well," Jack started in, "Cardiff is located on top of a rift through time and space." He sounded like he had given this speech, or a variation of it, many times before. "Things fall through the rift constantly, little bits of flotsam and jetsam from through the universe and all different eras. You're just the latest victim." He paused. "We think."

"You _think_?" Matt snapped.

He shrugged. "You didn't set off any of the monitoring devices we have set up to keep track of the rift. The rift is still the most plausible theory, but it's not the only one."

"Great."

"You know, you're taking all this 'rip in time and space' thing very calmly," Dr. Doogie observed.

"Hello, I just disappeared out of a courtroom and reappeared in a really weird morgue. That doesn't usually happen to me," Matt said, sarcasm lacing his voice far more than it usually did. Oh, he was quite proficient in sarcasm, but most of the time he just went with being blunt and saved sarcasm for a back-up strategy. "I'm open for any sort of explanation, even if it was stolen from a bad X-Files episode."

They both smirked at that, and then seemingly decided to get down to business. "Okay, you said you're from Boston. What time?"

Before he could stop his automatic reaction to anyone asking the time – even though he _knew_ that it wasn't what they meant – he glanced down at his watch. "Er, 2007. January somethingth." At their looks, he shrugged. "What? It was my day off, I don't keep track of dates when I don't have to use them for reports."

Jack got a thoughtful look on his face. "Looks like you just traveled through space, then. But just in case, we need to do some tests." He nodded at Doogie Howser. "Owen, take some samples of him and then bring him upstairs so Tosh can scan him." And then, he was distracted by a shiny object somewhere upstairs and wandered off. Or, well, so it seemed to Matt.

Owen gave a put-upon sigh and walked over to where they kept the sharp instruments of doom that most people called needles. He waited. "Well?"

"That's generally where you go to get water, yes," Matt said, not moving any closer to the pointy objects of death.

"You-" Owen paused, and started to grin, in a quite evil manner. "You're afraid of needles, aren't you?" He snickered.

Matt glared. "No! ...yes. So? They're sharp, pointy things that suck out your blood! They're like..." he struggled for a proper analogy. "Really thin metal vampires!" Owen stared at him for a long moment before cracking up. "I'm glad I could amuse you," Matt muttered, crossing his arms. Owen shook his head and came towards him, stabbing a needle into one of his veins without any of the usual precautions or tricks that doctors usually went for. "Nice bedside manner, doc. I see why they have you in the morgue," Matt told him snippily, very purposefully _not_ looking at the metal object sticking out of his arm.

Owen rolled his eyes and removed the needle after drawing what, Matt was pretty certain, was somewhere near a pint of blood. Which he thought was a bit much for a _sample_. Owen set the filled vial aside and pulled out a cotton swab, indicating impatiently for Matt to open his mouth. Now this was something he was familiar with! He obediently opened his mouth, although he couldn't resist sticking his tongue out at the British guy. His DNA was quickly taken, and Owen set that aside as well before starting up the stairs.

Matt decided it might be a good idea to, you know, follow him. Because otherwise he'd be stuck with an autopsy table and vial of his own blood, and he couldn't help but think that only bad things could come from that.

He stopped, awe-struck, not long after leaving the sunken area that was the morgue. If he'd thought that the morgue was weird, then he had no idea what to call the rest of the building. If it was a building, and not... a cave or something. Which seemed a little more likely. He stood slack-jawed for a long, long time, before he was pulled out of it by a loud screech and flapping of wings. "What the- is that a pterodactyl?!" he demanded, slightly hysterical again.

Owen reappeared – truthfully, Matt hadn't noticed that he'd gone anywhere – with his omnipresent smirk firmly in place. "What, I thought you were fine with the whole 'rip in time and space' thing. We call it Myfanwy."

Matt didn't both reacting to the implied insult, instead he just blinked and muttered, "Crazy Welsh people."

"Hey, I'm from London! You want to mutter about the crazy Welsh, you talk about Cooper or the tea boy." Owen sounded highly indignant.

"Which one named the dinosaur?"

"Oh, that was actually Jack. And he," Owen said triumphantly, "Is a crazy American, like you."

"Hey! I resemble that comment," a voice said from behind Matt. He spun around to see a grinning Jack leaning against the wall. Behind him was a girl (well, woman, probably, but she looked like a little girl) with long dark brown hair and eyes almost as wide as Owen's mouth (both literally and metaphorically). "Matt Seely, meet Gwen Cooper. She was with the police here before she joined us, I bet you guys have things in common."

He turned around and walked down another set of stairs with the sort of air that didn't even question if you were following him; of _course _you were. And much to Matt's inner disappointment, he found that yes, he was.

Walking by them at the end of the stairs was a man (or boy, almost; Matt was getting really annoyed with how young everyone around here was – so far, except for the boss, he was pretty sure he was the oldest) dressed rather snappily in a suit, and carrying a large stack of folders. He nodded and said a polite, "Sir," to Jack, not pausing as he walked off to some opening on the other side of the... well, he'd call it a room for now.

"That's Ianto Jones, he's in charge of the archives and makes the best damn coffee in the world," Jack said by way of introduction before leading him over to a what looked like a miniature workshop all on a single table. A cute, kinda nervous Asian woman was at the table, fiddling with a few things and frowning at others from behind her glasses. "And this is Toshiko Sato, computer genius. She's going to scan you."

The girl jumped forward with a device that probably had some purpose or another and also probably would have made Nigel drool, but to Matt it just looked like a really fancy remote for a TV set. A silvery-blue light came out one end and she carefully tilted and moved the remote control until he'd been completely bathed by the freaky light, and then turned around and started clattering away on a computer. He waited a moment, but that seemed to be it, since she didn't look back up and Jack had wandered away (distracted by either another shiny object or the archivist; Matt wasn't sure which).

Oh well. He could always just follow Owen around and annoy him. It'd make him feel right at home, it would.

It only took about five minutes of Matt following him around and asking 'Why?' or 'What's that do?' to everything before Owen snapped. "I've got paperwork to do!" he snapped. "You can go bother Gwen, it's not like that woman ever has actual work to do," he suggested ever-so thoughtfully.

"You know," Matt started slowly, pondering, before Gwen could protest Owen's words, "I'm often called a self-centered, sexist, smart-ass. But two out of three ain't bad."

Despite (or maybe because of) the occasional shared glance of sexual tension (hello, he was friends with Woody Hoyt, one-half of the poster couple for unresolved sexual tension in relationships), the Gwen chick with the large gap between her two front teeth chortled happily at the insult. She was kind of annoying. Actually, she reminded him very strongly of Jordan Cavanaugh – even in England, he couldn't escape annoying brunettes.

Owen puffed up in response to both Matt's words and Gwen's response. "Hey! I-" he paused suddenly. "Which of those aren't I?"

Matt smirked evilly. "The last one. I don't have any evidence one way or the other about your ass."

And again, before it got anywhere good, Jack reappeared with the cute Asian chick and a frown on his face. Matt was not a big fan of frowning. It usually meant that something happened that he wasn't going to like.

"Got some bad news for you, Matt," Jack started off, with an attempt at a grin. Matt ignored the fact that the guy had actually called him Matt; he'd been 'Seely' since high school. Jack nodded at the Asian chick – Toshiko, he thought her name was – who then started to babble something about... okay, Matt couldn't even pretend like he knew what she was talking about.

Owen obviously recognized the symptoms of technobabble-coma, because he interrupted Toshiko with a smirk that, Matt was coming to realize, was his typical expression. "She means that somehow you managed to not just fall through a rip in space, but also a rip in dimensions." Off of Matt's blank expression, he sighed and added, " You're from a different reality than this one."

"And," Jack's voice interrupted quietly, "That means we can't take you back to your life."


	3. Chapter 2

**A Boston Detective in a Welsh Alien-Defense Agency  
**Chapter 2

* * *

"...oh." Matt wasn't sure if he was in shock, or if he really didn't care that much about the fact that he was now stuck in the Wales of another universe and wouldn't ever be able to go back. No more working for the Boston Police Department, solving murders while pissing off all of his co-workers; no more running interference between his sister and mother so they wouldn't "accidentally" kill each other; no more instantly deleting all of his dad's phone calls; no more... well, he couldn't particularly say no more being stuck in elevators with the corpses of man-eating fish, although he did hope for it.

All of the others were looking at him apprehensively, almost expecting him to either start ranting or to break down in tears. Matt was always sorry to disappoint (well, not really, he always purposefully planned to disappoint, but telling people that tended to piss them off and he'd noticed that the entire group of Torchwoodies had at least one gun on them).

After a few seconds of them waiting for Matt to spaz out, Owen seemingly got bored and took the opportunity to retreat back to his desk which was almost wallpapered (it would have been wallpapered, but it's hard to wallpaper something that isn't a wall, and desks did not qualify as such) with paperwork. Yes, yes, people being stuck in another dimension, never able to contact family or friends again, quite sad. But that didn't write all his reports for him.

"So what's going to happen to me?" Matt asked not long after Owen went over to his desk. "I mean, is there another Matt Seely in this universe? And I don't have any records or anything, how am I supposed to get a job to, you know, live?"

Toshiko took this as her cue to jump in. "I did a search for all Matt Seelys in the United States. There was a few of them, but they were all too old to be you."

"And as for the records, we can always forge those," Jack said, watching him closely. "We'll help you get settled in, find a place to live, and a job."

Matt frowned, thoughtfully. A job, a new job. He could be anything (well, within reason) that he wanted to be. And he was drawing a complete blank on job options. He could go back to the police force – but if he remembered correctly, cops in the UK didn't carry guns, and he always got very paranoid without a firearm. And he was definitely going to stick around the UK, because this group of strange people were the only ones he had any connection to in this world.

That's when it hit him, how alone he was. Delayed reaction, maybe. "Why can't I work here?" he demanded, desperate to keep contact with the only people he knew – or the only people he knew that also knew _him_, anyway.

Jack gave him a placating smile. "Torchwood isn't exactly... a _normal_ workplace," he started off. "We don't just deal with people – and dinosaurs – that fall through time."

No shit, thought Matt. "No shit," Matt then said. Even at the best of times, which this wasn't, Matt didn't keep much of what he thought inside his own head. It tended to bounce around and echo loudly when he did that, until it distracted him to the point that he accidentally spiced up his coffee with Tabasco sauce. Woody still laughed at him for that (and he had a right to, since Matt had taken one sip of the coffee and then spit it out all over his desk in front of the whole squad room). Woody probably wasn't going to laugh at him anymore, though. What with him disappearing off the face of the planet. No more Woody mocking him, no more him teasing Bug about Lily, or mouthing off to Macy.

Before he go too in-depth in his own personal pity party, Jack smirked at him and then raised his voice, keeping his eyes on Matt. "Hey Owen, why don't you take Matt here down to the cells and introduce him to Janet?" he asked.

Owen grumbled, but left his paperwork with a glower at first the forms, and then Jack, who insisted that he fill out said forms. "Come on," he grunted as he strode by Matt, who looked highly confused. (Others would say he looked highly sarcastic, but the subtle tilt of his eyebrow and the microscopic widening of his eyes changed it into what Matt, at least, recognized as confusion.)

Janet turned out to be the name of a creature that looked a bit like someone had cross-bred humans with wild boars and then raised them near Chernobyl. "We call them Weevils," Owen said, sounding a bit bored with his reaction.

"So where's the bigger one?" Matt asked.

Owen turned and frowned at him. "What?"

"This is the lesser of two Weevils, right?" Matt started to laugh at his own lame joke, and it didn't take too long for it to become more than a little hysterical, to the point that he had to carefully make himself sit down in the corner where the dirty concrete wall met the equally dirty concrete floor, across from 'Janet'.

After a moment, Owen knelt down in front of him, looking uncertain. "Are, uh, you all right?"

Some more hysterical giggles, and Matt managed to choke out, "Peachy keen."

They sat there like that (well, Matt sat and Owen knelt) for a while longer as Matt slowly calmed himself down and stopped the giggles. He leaned his head against the wall and caught his breath before speaking in a voice so calm it was bordering on hysterical. "You know, the stupid thing is that what I'm actually going to miss the _most_? Is arguing with people I don't really like." This almost made him crack up again, but by very calmly breathing in, and then out, then in again, and then out again, he managed to stay calm.

"Er," Owen was obviously uncomfortable. "Well, you can argue with me, if you want," he said, still watching Matt as if he was going to snap and go on a psychotic rampage.

Matt pouted. "That wouldn't work. I actually like you." He sounded a little disappointed by this, like he'd been hoping to dislike everyone in the creepy underground building he'd appeared in and Owen was completely ruining his dreams.

Owen raised an eyebrow. "I'm... sorry?" Matt grinned at that, but didn't break into hysterics again. It seemed like that moment had, thankfully, passed. Owen put out his hand (and wondered at himself; he wasn't usually this nice to people. Or nice at all) and helped Matt off the ground. "Come on, I've got paperwork to complete," he said, unable to keep the whine out of his voice. "And you need to work things out with Jack."

Matt smirked. "You make it sound like we're in a relationship or something." Owen rolled his eyes in response, and they headed back to the main section of the building, the part that was actually lit to look like something other than a set for a really bad horror movie.

When they got there, Jack waved Matt into his office and got started with creating an identity for him, Matt insisting the entire way that he was going to work for Torchwood. Then they came to the part of the forgery where they were giving him a university degree and the like. "What degree would you like?"

"Which one's best for working at Torchwood?" Matt asked. Jack glared and Matt looked innocent (key word: _looked_). And then they both dropped those looks as klaxons began to blare and the entire place went into lock-down. "Well," Matt said, "That can't be good."


	4. Chapter 3

**A Boston Detective in a Welsh Alien-Defense Agency**  
Chapter 3

* * *

Jack tore out of his office like a bat out of hell (a cliché that had long confused Matt, since he rather thought that bats would be fond of hell and therefore not prone to leaving in a hurried manner), and Matt followed, mostly for the lack of anything better to do. And also because the big concrete-mixed-with-metal structure that the natives referred to as the Hub got kind of scary with the general darkness broken occasionally by flashing lights that was the Hub on lock-down.

"What the hell happened?" Jack demanded immediately.

"And if we knew that, don't you think we'd be fixing whatever it was?" Owen asked sarcastically.

"Oh, you're capable of working now?" Jack's voice had no sympathy at all.

Owen bristled. "Hey, if you want to do my job, go on ahead."

"So you do more than just blow up rats?"

Matt, who had been glancing back and forth as though watching a tennis match – or, rather, something that was actually interesting and went back and forth like a tennis match – had to stop them at that. "Wait, you blow up rats?" Wherever he went, he couldn't seem to escape crazy people in lab coats.

Owen pouted. "_One_ time. Just once."

"If you two are done with your pissing match," Gwen interrupted sarcastically (although Matt had noted earlier that she was just as amused by their bitching as he was), "We're still in lock-down. Tosh is getting the cameras back up so we can try and see what's going on."

Jack stalked over to stand behind Tosh, still scowling from his bitch fest with the doctor. "Where's Ianto?" he demanded only a second later, having realized that the rest of the team (and their guest) were all gathered around Tosh's computer, but the Welsh man was nowhere in sight.

Tosh answered, not looking up from the keyboard she was clattering away on. "He was in the tourist office when the lock-down was initiated, he's still on the outside." Jack nodded at her, looking relieved that at least one of his team wasn't stuck inside with whatever had set off the alarms. (Or maybe he was just looking relieved that _Ianto_ wasn't trapped in there; Matt had seen more than a few interesting looks between the two of them, and they hadn't exactly been around each other for any major length of time. And look, Matt had worked many cases with Bug and Nigel. He knew how to pick up on _that_ kind of workplace tension.)

"There!" Tosh suddenly cried out, bringing up a camera view on screen. "I've only been able to bring up cameras in the archives and the cells, but I've found where it got in." She gestured at the screen, which showed the main cells and, at the far end, an open hatch leading to the sewer system. As Jack muttered about crucifying whoever hadn't locked the hatch, and Owen started to edge away from him nervously, Tosh continued, "I also managed to get the heat sensors back on-line. Whatever it is just entered the basement – heat signature's too high for it to be human."

"Hope Ianto isn't keeping another surprise for us," Owen muttered.

Matt was intrigued, but didn't get the opportunity to ask for clarification because Jack just completely ignored Owen in favor of giving commands. For some reason, Matt was strongly reminded of Woody for a moment before he shook it off. "Owen, Gwen, you're with me. Tosh, I want you to stay here and tell us if it moves." He glanced at Matt. "Matt, you stay here with her." He then strode off as the others scrambled to obey.

"No. I'm going with you," Matt said, stubbornly shadowing Jack's steps.

"Look, you're not prepared to deal with aliens," Jack snapped, seemingly finally completely annoyed by Matt.

"Maybe not, but I bet none of you had any 'alien experience' before you worked for Torchwood. Seems like a kind of small hiring pool, if you only take those who already know how to deal with aliens," Matt argued. "And anyway," he added as an after-thought, mostly to himself, "I doubt an alien could be worse than that Oliver kid."

Jack glared at him for a moment, and then snapped, "Fine!" and headed for the basement, Gwen following behind him. He'd compared Jack to Woody not long before, and now he couldn't help but put Gwen in as Lu. This, in the twisted analogy world he was creating, probably made Ianto Jordan, except for those times that Gwen was Jordan and Jack and Ianto were Nigel and Bug. Matt frowned. People were complex. It was kind of annoying.

Owen wordlessly handed him a gun (Matt preened a little when he realized Owen had an extra one prepared for him; he always loved it when others thought as highly of him as he did of himself), and they also followed.

The basement turned out to be... a basement. Exactly like the one at the precinct, except not as well lit. Matt was a little disappointed, as he'd subconsciously been hoping that this entire reality was as strange and cool as the main floor had been, and to find out that not even all of the _Hub_ was like that was a little disillusioning.

They followed Tosh's directions through their earpieces (well, through Jack and Gwen's earpieces; Matt had been issued no Bluetooth technology, and Owen had forgotten his on his desk) and soon came to a room that had two doors. Through the magic of shaking his head and mouthing words, and sometimes even holding up a finger or two, Jack indicated that he and Gwen would take one door, Matt and Owen the other. Tosh wished them a whispered good luck, they took their positions and counted to three, and burst in to find-

"A cat." Jack's voice was disbelieving, and weapons were put away on all parts except Matt, who really felt like the universe owed him a dead cat at this point. "The Hub went into lock-down over a _cat_?"

"There's something around its neck," Owen observed while giving Matt a weird look until he put his gun away.

Matt, of course, had wound up being the one closest to the cat, so he sighed and crouched down next to the animal. "Huh, it looks like-"

Whatever he said was lost in the blinding flash of light and loud _CRACK_ that sounded.


End file.
